 Filmasia
Asian Film Festival
From Nov 30 to Dec 12, Aero and Světozor cinemas
are hosting the second annual Asian film festival Filmasia.
This year, the festival points its focus predominantly on the
dynamic Taiwanese cinematography. The word "dynamic"
is justified by the fact that over 20 years, Taiwanese cinematography
has been among the world's most interesting. After the end of
World War II and the civil was in China, the small island was
sought by Chinese refugees and became a dictatorship which lasted
until the end of the 70-ies. The development of Taiwan was also
influenced by the U.S. military presence on the island. After
the lifting of the censorship legislation, cinematography became
one of the key art forms in the country.
This setup fully exposed its outcome in the 80-ies, when no international
film festival could take place without Taiwanese films competing
for its awards and Taiwanese directors became world-scale celebrities.
Even though most of them haven't become familiar in the Czech
Republic yet, such names as Ang Lee, Hou Hsiao-Hsien or Tsai Ming-Liang
are widely recognized already.
Filmasia 2006 offers a complex perspective on the past
and present of Taiwanese cinematography at a breadth never seen
in the Czech Republic yet. The festival takes pride in presenting
the Czech premiere of Hou Hsiao-Hsiens most recent picture Three
Times awarded in Cannes last year. At Světozor, the entire Friday
program will be dedicated to this director. On Saturday, the Korean
Horror Night takes place at Aero. As its guest, the festival will
welcome the Taiwanese critic and producer Peggy Chiao who will
also lecture on Taiwanese cinematography at FAMU.
Taiwanese cinematography is famous especially for its
way of portraying an individual within a modern city, a modern
society, the basic situation depicted being in many ways similar
to that of the current Czech Republic. Therefore, the films presented
at Filmasia bear much relevance to us today, surprise by their
visual novelty and their unexpected moral statements.
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